\u201cThe Cult of the Suicide Bomber\u201d DVD (Disinformation)<\/p>\n
review by John Trent<\/p>\n
Ex-CIA man Robert Baer revisits his old stomping ground in this 90 minute documentary, wherein he traces the evolution of the suicide bomber. We travel through Iran, Lebanon, Israel and finally into the West \u2013 London, New York, Madrid and watch the development of suicide bombings from their beginnings in 1980 in Iran, as a weapon of war against their invading neighbor, Iraq. A 13-year old Iranian boy is a national hero \u2013 Hossein Fahmideh, the first ever suicide bomber, who, in 1982, on the battlefield in the Iran-Iraq war, strapped explosives to his body and threw himself under an Iraqi tank, destroying it and stopping the advancing Iraqi army. From then on it was a wonder-weapon in Middle-East wars. Then, with the Palestinian intifada that arose in the 1980s, suicide bombings morphed into a terror tactic, rather than a weapon of war. Now Palestinian militants were blowing themselves up in crowded Israeli neighborhoods with the idea of taking out as many civilians as possible.
\n For those who don\u2019t already know, Robert Baer is the man on whom George Clooney\u2019s Oscar-winning performance in \u201cSyriana\u201d is based. Baer has been making the rounds lately, in the past couple years, as a talking head on TV \u201cnews\u201d programs. Having worked in the middle of it all, he brings some credibility to it.
\n We revisit the scene of the biggest non-nuclear explosion since World War II, the 1983 truck bombing of the US Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, where 241 Marines were murdered: 12,000 pounds of explosives were packed into that truck that was driven by a still unknown\/unnamed suicide bomber, or as their Arab sympathizers call them, \u201cMartyrs\u201d. What Baer and a Lebanese former investigator of the bombing discuss is the oddity that no one took responsibility for it; no one claimed credit for the attack. At least to that point, all other suicide bombings have had groups take credit for it and name the martyred bomber. However, in this case, no one still has taken credit for it. That leads them to figure that, logically, it must be because it was masterminded by a country, probably Iran, who have basically been waging a secret war against the United States. That didn\u2019t surprise me though. I thought everyone knew that, but really, that is a pretty gutsy thing to say in public like that, even if it is an open secret.
\n The last leg of the journey is Israel, where the Palestinians have turned suicide bombing into a terror weapon, a senseless, destructive chaos perpetrated on Israel\u2019s civilians and military, but increasingly the distinctions are blurred and the targets are just wherever the biggest crowds are in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Hebron, Jenin, Gaza\u2026You see the defiance of the families of the dead bombers, the way they are in complete denial about reality. For them, their sons didn\u2019t commit \u201csuicide\u201d, they became martyrs, committed \u201cmartyrdom\u201d. Suicide doesn\u2019t enter into the equation because for one thing, they\u2019re not doing it out of desperation, it\u2019s not a selfish act, it\u2019s for the good of their people, the Palestinians, those \u201coppressed, downtrodden masses of innocent people\u2026\u201d Mm hmm.
\n There is also footage of some of these suicide attacks, videos secretly filmed by the confederates of the bomber in the vehicle. You see many instances of vans being driven fast into another vehicle, a military checkpoint, chasing a bus with Israeli settlers, then settling for an Israeli Army truck when the bus got away.
\n Most, if not all, of the bombers have made videotapes of themselves reading their wills to the camera, detailing what they want their families and friends to do, to remember, et cetera. The chilling part about the tapes with the will readings is that these kids look like their doing a school project or just a goof; rarely is there any overt anger or bitterness on the part of the soon-to-be dead kid, but rather a strange calm, a glassy-eyed acceptance of a horrible, violent death and they are brainwashed to believe that this is a good thing to do and that it is to be done for the greater good of his \u201cpeople\u201d, who are being oppressed by Israel, for instance. It\u2019s usually at Israel that the latter period of suicide bombings are directed.
\n So, in the final analysis, \u201cThe Cult of the Suicide Bomber\u201d is a pretty objective historical quest to trace the roots of this phenomenon, the suicide bomber. Robert Baer has put together a good map of the routes this scourge of the world has gone, from a battlefield in the Iran-Iraq war to senseless acts of chaos and carnage, directed at innocent, helpless civilians. It\u2019s downright depressing, to tell you the truth, there is no happy outlook, no hopeful pontification and no macho, tough-talking rhetoric. What you get is far more information and facts than anything you\u2019d ever see in any newscast or news channel. The people Baer speak with don\u2019t mince words, they tell it like it is and so does Baer, for that matter. He talks to many sides in this whole thing. There is quite a dichotomy between the sides of the suicide bomber & his supporters and say, an Israeli intelligence officer or a lucky Israeli girl who\u2019s survived a bombing (but who lost a sister); the reality of life is completely different, different as night and day between the two sides. It\u2019s pretty cut and dry, the arc of the suicide bomber; they are fighting the big, bad occupying machine, in the case of Israel vs. the Palestinians and the Israelis see vicious, hate-filled, death-starved fanatics in the Palestinians. But when you listen to tales of Palestinians who tell of a once-thriving business district now basically abandoned due to Israeli settlers who lived above the shops and would, according to the Arab shopkeepers, throw rocks and bottles and even pour boiling water on Palestinians below. Of course, it is really so much they-said\/they-said. Who is right, here? Who is the aggressor? Israel? Most would say yes, but still that is no excuse for suicide bombers. What if Israel was not militarily aggressive, what if they weren\u2019t super gung-ho for security and iron-fisted law & order? The anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism is so virulent in parts of the Arab world that many are afraid for the existence of Israel. After all, isn\u2019t that the credo of radical Arab groups like Hamas and Hezbollah? To drive Israel into the Red Sea? Unfortunately, however, there seems no end in sight to this escalating crisis that kills and kills and kills. But with this DVD at least the average American who doesn\u2019t pay attention to the outside world can finally get some insight into what the hell is going on in the world. For more info, go check out http:\/\/www.disinfo.com \u2013 JT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cThe Cult of the Suicide Bomber\u201d DVD (Disinformation) review by John Trent Ex-CIA man Robert Baer revisits his old stomping ground in this 90 minute documentary, wherein he traces the evolution of the suicide bomber. We travel through Iran, Lebanon, Israel and finally into the West \u2013 London, New York, Madrid and watch the development of suicide bombings from their […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[477],"class_list":["post-94","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-the-cult-of-the-suicide-bomber-dvd-revie"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":78,"url":"https:\/\/reviewermag.com\/press\/2006\/06\/08\/al-zarqawi-believed-killed-in-raid\/","url_meta":{"origin":94,"position":0},"title":"al-Zarqawi believed killed in raid","author":"admin","date":"June 8, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Terror leader al-Zarqawi dead, Iraqi officials say From Debra Krajnak CNN BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most wanted insurgent in Iraq, is dead, according to an aide to Iraq's prime minister. 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